AMD shows off DirectX 11 GPU at QuakeCon

Moving one step closer to release, AMD’s graphics unit showed off some DirectX 11 hardware at QuakeCon 2009 last week. The sneak preview involved a look at the demo for the upcoming Wolfenstein title, which uses just DirectX 9 so there was really not much new to highlight in terms of performance or functionality, but also included some tech demos showcasing new DirectX 11 features.

Both PC Perspective and Legit Reviews stopped by AMD’s private suite at the hotel where QuakeCon was hosted and got a glimpse at tessellation, soft shadows, and ambient occlusion running in DX11 mode. Although no one was able to actually see the “Evergreen” reference card that was inside the demo system, Nathan Kirsch over at Legit reports that it is a dual slot solution with a pair of dual DVI outputs and both DisplayPort and HDMI connectors.

He also posted several pics from the demos, describing three different rendering modes and noting how turning on some advanced texture-based shadowing effects like High Definition Ambient Occlusion (HDAO) takes a significant toll on gaming performance – but can be offset by enabling DX11’s compute shader. Additionally, you can catch a video after the jump (originally posted by PC Per) where AMD’s Neil Robinson walks us through these features and answers some questions regarding DirectX 11 adoption.